If I Don't Post Now....

If I don't post now (when I should be cleaning the downstairs bathroom... my brother's family is en route), it will be another 2 weeks and I'll have 10,000 more pictures to sift through.... SO, I'm going to try and cram in the next-to-last week of school, the last week of school and Kara's birthday. The last 2 weeks have been a doozie. There are so many end-of-the-year activities, I could scream!!! Mostly they were fun and we've had the most beautiful weather, so all in all, it was a good time.

Let's start with the next-to-last-week-of-school...

Clay had his animal report.. it was on the cheetah. A kindergartner doing an animal report translates out to mom doing the animal report.. except for the horrible handwriting. That was all Clay. He wanted a picture of a cheetah hunting. There are some good ones online. This was pretty much the only one that was appropriate for kindergartners...

Kara's end-of-the-year choir concert. She LOVES choir even though I'm skeptical about her natural singing abilities. Anyway, it was a fun year for her and made her more confident musically and for that, I'm grateful.

Mother's Day fell in there somewhere.. we had dinner at Sullivan's (a favorite of mine) with our friends the Hollingers. They're moving (BOO!!!) in about 10 days and we're trying to squeeze in as much time with them as possible.

Last week of school... CrAaaaaZZZZZZyyyy!!! Seriously. Field Day... outside in AK.. it was pretty chilly that day but the kids had a ball. I was glad that both kids had field day at the same time so that I could multi-task and kill two birds with one field day, as it was.

Field day was followed by an author's tea in Kara's class that night. Kara spent a great deal of time writing books this year. She discovered a love for reading and she read A TON! I love seeing her challenge herself with new books. She loves certain mysteries and she loves Clementine series. The author's tea was my favorite of the week because of how excited Kara was. Clayton was able to make the tea on his way to the airport and to Seattle for a few days.

Baby chicks that had just hatched in her classroom. Poor little friends.. pecking their way out of the eggs to be received by a room full of second graders!! AAAArrrrggghhH!!!

The next day was a kindergarten field trip to the Eagle River Nature Center... Not my favorite place this time of year as it is normally pretty muddy (all the melting snow) which leads to many small birds some people call mosquitoes. They're kamikazee freaky bugs and I hate them! And they're gigantic. However, this year it was warm, dry and bug-free (if you don't count 50 kindergartners).

Clay's very awesome kindergarten teacher.. she was such a blessing and an answered prayer for sure. Clay had a GREAT year and he ended up loving school thanks in no small part to Mrs. Hardy.

The whole group... what a back drop!?!?

Ooops.. Somewhere in there was the kindergarten performance.. sort of a little end-of-the-year celebration.. but not a graduation, thankfully! Those kind of drive me nuts :) Clay's in the top row, middle.

The last day of Kindergarten and 2nd grade at Alpenglow Elementary. Where did the year go?!? My grandmother is one of the wisest people I know. A long time ago, I must have just graduated college, I was commenting on how fast the 4 years had gone. She kind of laughed at me and said "You ain't seen nothing yet". She's right. The years FLY by. So very proud of Kara and Clay and all they accomplished this last year.

Upon reflection... I will give Kara's birthday its own post.. but I will post a teaser.. Kara wanted one thing for her birthday this year. That was for Karen to come from Denver. We told her it wasn't going to work out for Karen to come but that she would have 3 surprises for her birthday.. the first one was a redecorated room. She came home from the last day of school (oh yeah, that's what I worked on in my free time the last week of school... while Clayton was in Seattle) to her new room. She was STOKED! These aren't good pictures, I'll post more later but I like her surprised face :)

Aloha!!

Hello, my name is April and I'm a defunct blogger.....

I don't know where my blogging mojo has gone!! I have, however, had five people in the last week request a post and so here I am, posting ;) You're welcome.

When we last left you, Clayton was in Japan. He was there for about 5 weeks and yes, he was there for the big earthquake and pursuant tsunami. But, no (thankfully), he did not feel the earthquake nor did he have any fallout from the tsunami. He was in Okinawa which is VERY far from where the action occurred. I was glad to have him come home not very long after the event. The kids and I had a pretty uneventful TDY for which I am ever grateful.

Since then, we've said good-bye (I sincerely hope!!) to the snow and ice. Hello and goodbye to break-up (Alaska's WORST time of year)... And hopefully, as I type, hello to a beautiful spring and summer.

To reward ourselves for persevering through another long winter and a deployment to boot, we booked a trip to Hawaii (Alaskans favorite vacation spot, for sure.. costs less to fly to Oahu than it does to get to AZ, by several hundred dollars per person at times). This was to be our first family vacation in a very long time. When Clayton was in Japan, my parents were going to come to AK but we soon figured out that they could meet us in Hawaii for less than half of their trip to AK.. PLUS, Hawaii is much more scenic than AK at this time of year.

SO, since my last post, we've done all manner of things not the least of which was a week to Hawaii...

This is how the AK Johnsons rolled in Hawaii... our rental house had bikes and we made good use of them.. Kara commanded an adult sized, 500# beach cruiser. Turns out, our mountain bikes are like Porsches compared to beach cruises. Also, another friendly tip, don't ride beach bikes if you haven't made good use of the beach showers before riding a couple miles back home. Just sayin'.

Our very awesome rental house in Haleiwa... we decided to skip the hotel scene this trip in favor for more space, more control over our food and quiet :) We were about 1/2 block from Shark's Cove and we basically backed up to Sunset Beach. It was really fabulous.

Clay practicing with his binoculars. He wore them around his neck pretty much anytime we left the house in the car...

Chances are he was checking out on of these guys.....

One of the benefits of being in Haleiwa?? World-famous shave ice. We didn't love it from Matsumoto's this time so we had to keep trying out new places....

So we did another touristy thing and went to a luau at Kara's desperate request. We were far too lazy to go back to Honolulu so we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center's luau. No mai tais but it was still an excellent show even if the premise of the "show" was beyond lame.

I think this is Clay and I riding around on an ocean tricycle. Clayton was surfing way far down on the beach and Clay BEGGED me to rent one. They're a lot more work than you'd think..

Buzz and Billie at Pearl Harbor. They left us at the beach and enjoyed a touristy day with the rest of the old fogeys :)

We spent Easter in Hawaii... We ended up going to a really cool church in a school about 1/2 mile from our house (random) and then the kids hunted money-stuffed eggs in the back yard. They're really feeling the money eggs versus the candy eggs. DUH!

This is how we spent most of our days. Camped out at a beach. We tried out a few.. the waves were still pretty gnarly which made for lots of fun for Clayton, not so much for the kids being in the water. They played for HOURS in the sand, however, and we quite content.

Random back yard grill picture.. also in the back yard, many gecko lizards (who warred, ask Clay about that.. a highlight for him), patio set, 5 bikes, boogie boards and a hammock.

We drove to Ko Olina on Easter night for dinner at the original Roy's restaurant. Clayton, my dad and my dad's GPS were the navigators. I think I should have just used an old fashioned map to get there.. we would have been faster. However, Roy's is reliable for mai tais and such so I got over it quickly :)

Kara being sun aware. One of about 6 people total on the beach (our entire crew) who cared about sun protection.....

Sunset surfing. Someone random. Clayton stuck to the boogie board... he also found out how territorial locals are with the waves. He saw two guys almost come to blows over a wave in the water.. and they were both locals. So he surfed one day at Waikiki and then boogie boarded on the North Shore for the sake of his personal safety..!

I know this won't shock anyone who knows Clayton but he's not really into excursions whilst on vacation. He doesn't really like to spend a lot of money on services (or sights). However, this trip, he took both the kids gliding. They both loved it but Clay loved it more. Which was a surprise to this mom-of-a-daredevil-daughter.

Eating grapes on the front porch with the grandparents... this is what my kids did pretty much every night. Someday they'll grow grape vines in Haleiwa because of my kids!! Most mornings my kids walked to Starbucks with the grandparents. This was good for me because I woke up to my venti iced green tea with 5 (yes, 5) splenda. Good Morning!

One last trip to the ocean before we caught our respective night flights back to the mainland (I assume Alaska counts as the mainland.. it is connected to the MAIN LAND.. would some retailers please take this fact into consideration when shipping to me????)

** Author's note.. I remember why I haven't been posting. I hate blogger. And I hate uploading 10,000,000 pictures one at a time.